College footballers complete rewarding local tour

The St Vincent and the Grenadines Community College (SVGCC), recently completed a tour of two islands in the SVG chain with two matches per day in Georgetown on Friday January 5, Fitz Hughes on Saturday January 6, and in Bequia on Sunday January 7, 2024.

CAPE Physical Education Lecturer and Sports Coordinator at the college Roxell John, told SEARCHLIGHT: “The rationale behind the island tour is to give our top students in the football portion of our sports programme an extra opportunity to excel and to be seen and to develop some more camaraderie as it relates to what we do at the college. We used to do this type of activity before to give youngsters exposure, to give them an opportunity to see how things are done in other places, to give them the opportunity to play on different surfaces, in different environments, against different teams.”

In the past the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College hosted trips to Cariacou, competed in the annual Sir Garfield Sobers tournament in Barbados, and also visited Saint Lucia, Canouan, and Union Island.

“We wanted to get back to this, to be a little more diverse, in terms of what we offer the students at the College,” John explained.

He said that the six games played over the weekend “was a great experience. This group was actually guinea pigs if you want to call them that, for we told them that their decorum, the results, and how those three days went will probably decide what we are going to do, how we are going to go forward with other ideas like this. It was a tremendous experience, a lot of hard work.”

On January, 5, at the Chili Playing Field in Georgetown in game one, the SVGCC Team One defeated the Georgetown Secondary Past and Present Combined 4-2. Goals for the SVGCC came from Nyion Byron in the 38th minute; Rahju Benjamin- 49th minute; Quincy Charles- 59th minute; and Narine DaSilva in the 67th minute. Goals for Georgetown Secondary Past and Present Combined were scored by Kevin Browne in the 22nd minute and Christopher Lewis in the 52nd minute.

In Match Two, the game was drawn 1-all with N’Tini Delpesche scoring for SVGCC Team Two in the 48th minute, and for Owia United, by Jason Baptiste in the 38th.

On Saturday January, 6, SVGCC Team One scored their second victory from two games, while SVGCC Team Two were held to a second consecutive draw, this time at the Golden Grove Playing Field in Fitz Hughes, North Leeward.

The Delano Benjamin-led SVGCC Team One dismissed Southern North Leeward Under 23, 4-nil, with a hat-trick from Rahju Benjamin in the 9th, 14th, and 49th minutes, respectively; while Quincy Charles found the back of the old onion bag in the 28th minute.

On January, 7, at the Clive Tannis Playing Field in Bequia on the third and final day of the three-day tour, SVGCC Team One ended unbeaten when they were held to a 1-1 draw by the Bequia Under-23 football team. Gideon Richards sent SVGCC Team One ahead in the 27th minute, a lead they enjoyed until the 57th minute when Marlon Simmons converted a penalty for Bequia Under-23.

In match two of the Bequia Leg, SVGCC Team Two picked up their first win of the tour, after drawing the first two matches when they defeated Bequia United 2-1 in a keenly contested encounter. Dravid Compton opened the scoring for SVGCC Team Two in the 28th minute; Jamal Ollivierre equalized for Bequia United in the 49th minute, and the winner for SVGCC Team Two came in the 56th minute from the penalty spot when N’Tini Delpeshe converted with precision, to the delight of his teammates and supporters.

John complimented the players who made this a possibility.

“I was very pleased with the performance of the players, they gelled very quickly, we did not have a practice session on the Thursday”, because a number of them had training sessions with the national Under-20 squad.

“We did not want to compromise the national training as they would be missing some training sessions due to the games over the weekend,” John pointed out.

“We compliment the guys for their show of camaraderie, resilience, and the desire to play, and play at a very high level. Things like these are important to give the youngsters around St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the College some more meaningful opportunities to be part and parcel of activities when you look at how the society is being affected by other negative aspects.”